{"id":7956,"date":"2021-06-04T15:08:09","date_gmt":"2021-06-04T19:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/?p=7956"},"modified":"2021-06-04T15:08:09","modified_gmt":"2021-06-04T19:08:09","slug":"twist-the-knife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/twist-the-knife\/","title":{"rendered":"Twist the Knife"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-41\" src=\"http:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/r-avatar-e1443983880436.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"81\" height=\"81\" \/>Our characters hate us. We&#8217;ve said it before, and we&#8217;ll say it again. It&#8217;s a hazard of this job we&#8217;ve chosen, and it&#8217;s one we usually accept without complaint. But this time some of our characters are ghosts, and, well&#8230; we don&#8217;t want to be haunted, you know? Nevertheless we persist &#8212; for you, dear reader. It&#8217;s all for you!<\/p>\n<p>We know that, intelligent and discerning bibliophile that you are, you don&#8217;t want to read a novel about pleasant people who experience nothing but joy. Apart from being unrealistic, it wouldn&#8217;t be very interesting.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-7959\" src=\"http:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-04-at-2.48.30-PM-623x1024.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"493\" srcset=\"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-04-at-2.48.30-PM-623x1024.png 623w, https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-04-at-2.48.30-PM-182x300.png 182w, https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-04-at-2.48.30-PM-768x1263.png 768w, https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-04-at-2.48.30-PM-934x1536.png 934w, https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-04-at-2.48.30-PM-1245x2048.png 1245w, https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/Screen-Shot-2021-06-04-at-2.48.30-PM.png 1406w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>So when we&#8217;re hammering away at the plot rainbow, and we reach a decision point like, &#8220;Should Istvan Von Rupert crash his custom zeppelin, or get food poisoning from eating raw snails?&#8221; the answer is usually &#8220;Yes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The above example introduces physical peril for poor Istvan, but in our books he&#8217;s actually more likely to face emotional or psychological turmoil. So, &#8220;Will his wife leave him, or will he lose his job?&#8221; might be a better illustration. And again, the answer is probably &#8220;Both.&#8221; No matter how much we might like Istvan (which really isn&#8217;t very much, but that&#8217;s beside the point), we need to complicate his life for our own amusement, and yours. The scuzzier the decision feels, the better it generally is. And anyway, aren&#8217;t ghosts supposed to have tumultuous backstories?<\/p>\n<p>A writing partner is someone who will help with the exorcism that will inevitably result from pissing off the ghosts as much as we&#8217;re planning to.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our characters hate us. We&#8217;ve said it before, and we&#8217;ll say it again. It&#8217;s a hazard of this job we&#8217;ve chosen, and it&#8217;s one we usually accept without complaint. But this time some of our characters are ghosts, and, well&#8230; we don&#8217;t want to be haunted, you know? Nevertheless we persist &#8212; for you, dear [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[324,323],"tags":[519],"class_list":["post-7956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brainstorming-inspiration","category-plotting-outlines","tag-ghost-novel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7956"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7960,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7956\/revisions\/7960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/runeskelley.com\/skelleyverse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}